


Marking Time

by Jedi Buttercup (jedibuttercup)



Series: More Than a Mask [2]
Category: Death Race (2008)
Genre: Character of Color, M/M, Post-Canon, Slash, Tattoos, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-11
Updated: 2010-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-06 04:51:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedibuttercup/pseuds/Jedi%20Buttercup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They didn't talk emotion, he and Joe; never spoke about long-term plans, or anything else that might imply commitment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marking Time

It was amazing how much a year could change the course of a man's life. Three hundred sixty-five days after the death of his wife, Jensen Ames awoke on a worn mattress next to a body heavier than his own, and replayed the course of events that had led him there in his mind's eye.

Suzy's voice, whispering in his ear that he was a good man; her beautiful face, open-eyed and bloody, when he'd come back downstairs from washing up. The blur of the attack: the chemical spray, the knife in his hand, the murderer taunting him as he walked out the door. Six months in prison, waiting for conviction and transfer to Terminal Island; then Hennessy, Frankenstein's mask, and the false opportunity offered with it. Coach, Gunner and Lists, supporting him as well as his old crew ever had even though they'd known him for less than a week. Case, hitching her wagon to his and enabling his escape. And Joe Mason: always Joe, from the moment the man had walked up to Jensen in the yard and nicknamed him Igor. Hadn't been able to get away from him since, and after six months, Jensen didn't think he was ever going to.

He wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that. They didn't talk emotion, he and Joe; never spoke about long-term plans, or anything else that might imply commitment. They more or less lived their lives one day at a time, and wore themselves out on each other whenever the mood called for it. But the fact remained that Joe had followed Jensen cross-country on his quest to find his daughter instead of going on ahead to Miami like he'd planned, and never spoke of leaving again once they'd crossed the border into Mexico. He was even letting Jensen make an 'honest man' out of him-- as far as the term 'honest' could be applied to their current employment-- and hadn't complained when Case had shown up the week before and he'd been temporarily exiled to the couch.

Jensen turned his head a little, stubble scraping on the sheets, as he took in the sleeping face of his fellow fugitive from justice. 'Partner' was probably a better word for their function in each other's lives, but not a term Jensen cared to use just yet, especially on this particular anniversary. Still. When he'd woken from dreams of laughter or lust in recent weeks, often as not it had been Piper's effervescent giggle, not the melody of his wife's amusement, ringing in his ears; soft lips and yielding curves had been replaced by rough, heavy hands and the ridged texture of facial scars skimming over the playing cards tattooed on the inner curve of his hip.

Each of those scars represented a man's death on the Terminal Island track, Coach had told him, cut there by Joe himself with a razor blade after each race. One of the scars was fresh, still fading after half a year; there were nearly a dozen all told, though one less than Jensen knew there should be. The moment Joe had connected the accented voice on the radio with the new wrench monkey on the Monster's crew, he'd known-- and Jensen had been perfectly aware he'd know-- that the original Frankenstein really had died at the other racer's hands. Joe'd never added a cut for that death, though; and Jensen had never asked why, nor asked what Joe had done to get himself sent to the Island in the first place.

He had his own dark side, after all. On mornings haunted by the less pleasant sort of dream-- Pachenko aiming two fingers at him in imitation of a gun, smirking as Jensen lay paralyzed in his wife's blood-- he kept sane by reminding himself of the ultimate outcome of that particular meeting: the column of Pachenko's neck trapped between his arms, the sound of vertebrae snapping as he took out his vengeance on Hennessy's chosen weapon. He'd never felt an instant's remorse for the act, though he knew that was a betrayal of what Suzy had wanted for him.

He wasn't a good man, that was all there was to it. Never had been. Never would be.

So was it naïve of him, to settle with this man who could hardly be any more different from his Suzy if Jensen had had the entire world to choose from? Maybe, but he didn't think so. Did Joe's history matter, if he could still hold Piper like she was the most precious jewel on Earth? Did the blood on his hands darken his soul any more than Jensen's? He shifted, still feeling the marks of strong fingers on his rib cage, the imprint of teeth in his shoulder, the residual soreness from the previous evening's events, and smirked. Did it make what they did together any less satisfying?

Joe stirred a little at the movement, blinking dark eyes open and focusing, slowly, on Jensen's face.

"Mornin'," he said, heading off the cautious wrinkle developing on Joe's forehead. "Was thinking about getting up and taking a shower." It wasn't quite an invitation. But the offer was there.

A leisurely smirk tugged up the corners of Joe's mouth. "Not still wore out, huh? I must be slipping."

So different from Suzy. She'd known what he'd been, and taken him anyway; encouraged him to be better. But he'd been the strong one in that relationship, the one who had to be coaxed to let his barriers down. It was a whole different thing, negotiating place between a pair of alpha dogs like he and Joe. Nothing said, everything implied, and not an ounce of yield in either one of them. 'Come the fuck back to bed' was as close as Jensen had ever got to a statement of intent; 'Well, then' the clearest agreement Joe had ever spoken aloud.

It wasn't love; but it was _loyalty_, and there was more assurance and contentment in it than Jensen had ever expected to find again in his lifetime.

"Was thinking about getting a new tattoo today, too," he said, casually.

Joe's smirk widened as he glanced down at the expansive black-line art already sketched across Jensen's body, the landmarks of a life lived a quarter mile at a time. "Don't have enough of 'em already?" he asked, skimming a wide palm over the gridwork on Jensen's right shoulder, the spiderweb on his flank, the lettering inked on his chest.

"Maybe a death's head," Jensen continued, squirming a little under the touch as his body began to insist they really needn't wait for the shower. "You know. Inside a circle."

Joe's breath hitched a little; but the only other sign he understood the significance was the more deliberate way his hands began to stroke and tease. "Hm," he murmured, voice roughened with intent. "Might have to get one of those, too."

The ink on Joe was harder to see against his dark skin; Jensen knew every inch of it, though, and stroked a firm thumb over the one nearest the insistent invitation pressing into his thigh. "Sounds good."

It had been a year. Yes, he thought; it was time.

\---


End file.
